Life with the Assassins
by Crusader1080
Summary: It is a story about myself trapped in Renaissance Italy after a time machine glitch. I have to follow the footsteps of a strange man known only as Ezio if I want to survive the historical Renaissance Italy.
1. Prologue

Life with the Assassins

Prologue

Everything was messed up. Everything right in front of my eyes were glowing white and pulsing. My ears were bombarded by noises, echoed off from all direction, even the smallest sound of breathing was deafening. I walked around without knowing where I was walking into since everything was very bright and noisy. As I walked, I noticed everything was blurry as I moved across, but I didn't mind about that since I have other issues to deal with.

I walked for almost few minutes and the noises were getting stronger by the passing second. I was forced to cover up my ears and lower my hood to block off the noise and brightness. It didn't help much to loosen the tension, but at least part of my brain could focus on the situation in hand instead processing the same input from the sensors. As I walked, I noticed a big man with a butcher knife, standing in front of an old two story wooden building. In the blur, I saw him talking someone inside before he walked toward me, his big body plus a sharp bodily odour from his shoulders struck my nose. I walked away immediately, but he seemed to follow me. I walked faster, trying to ditch the man with the knife, but he just followed me.

My head started to ache as I walked, like something was sucking my life force away. The noise was getting louder, despite of that, I continued. By the time I walked past a fountain, the deafening voice was replaced by a loud humming sound, and then everything turned into darkness.

"That boy is a _criminale_." The man with the butcher knife said to his colleague behind him, hidden from view from the crowd.

"_Criminale_? Are you serious? What did he do?" His colleague protested.

"_Chiudere_! I will show you that boy with that strange outfit is a _criminale_. I will show you!"

His colleague appeared in the darkness of the building. He looked left and right for anyone who might be listening to their conversation. After checking, he whispered, "If you irrational act caused another death, then I won't help you this time since I already helped you enough, _signore_."

The man grunted then followed the boy in the strange blue outfit.

I felt a powerful surge of coldness hit my face. I screamed in the sudden numbness on my face. I flung open my eyes: everything was a black blur with some multicolour patches. I let my hand wonder behind my back and felt something soft, wet and straw-like…wait? Straw? I was lying on top of a pile of wet straw! My sensors got back almost in an instant and I jumped off from the straw pile. Then a hand stopped me.

It was the hand of a young man. He wore an old 15 century robe with strange looking pants, something that I would only find in a museum or in an exhibit. His hair was blond and long which curls up a bit at the edge. His hat resembled a French artist would wear. He set the bucket aside and looked around. Then he whispered, "_Le mie scuse_ of pouring water on you, but you must leave here once and for all_ signore. _I know you are innocent but my stupid '_cacciatore_' always ignoring my orders.

I still didn't trust him since he was a part of this. I crossed my arms and glared at him, "Why should I trust you?"

"_Signore, _if you don't escape…"

He placed his index finger a few inches off his neck and made an gesture that resembled beheading. I got the idea very clearly—_they want to kill me._

"What should I do?" I asked, with fear in my tone.

"You should get upstairs and right in front of you is the main door outside, but be careful, my stupid '_cacciatore_' is up there sleeping and he is a light sleeper. One _slight_ move can set him off and you will…well you know what will happen right?"

I tried to get away from the scene after I thanked the young man, but I slipped on the wet floor and ended up a nasty fall headfirst and a wooden water barrel fell onto my legs. The numbness of my head was replaced with a sharp pain radiating all over my body like ripples.

I let out a loud groan.

"What's going here?" A man in rusty old clothes came rushing out from the kitchen with a butcher knife on his right hand. The young man watched and yelled at me to run. I let out a loud yelp before charging out from the room, with the man with the butcher knife chasing me behind. I knocked over things tried to stop him down, but it seemed futile as he was able to dodge the falling objects as if he already knew what I was going to do. I encountered open window which was no much bigger than my wrist at the end of the corridor. _Oh my!_

_You must clear over this, like you always do to small windows! _I commanded myself as I did all these parkour moves for years. As the scream from the man increases, I started panicked and as I started to imagine I being caught again by the man and being chopped into pieces and dumped into the nearest alleyway filled with hungry, blood thirsty dogs. As the scream drew closer, I bent my legs and dived into the window, clear over the frame just a few inches to spare. However, my nightmare was far from over because behind that window, was a river.

_Oh crap! More water!_

I closed my eyes and let the river took over me. I felt the rush of air moving across my body and my face. It was like the sound of death ringing in my ears. Then I hit something, but it wasn't something wet or liquid, it was solid and dry, followed by pain in my face and the rest of my body. Then, I saw a pair of feet then legs then a body. It was a man! A oarsman to be exact, he looked very astonished after he felt a sudden bump on his gondola and the next thing he knew was a teenager in a blue hooded outfit.

He offered me a hand and said, "You must be lost young man."

I grabbed his hand and he lifted myself off the gondola and set me in a sitting position. Then he turned his back and started paddling through the waterways in Florence. I looked around the river and saw the old masonry and wooden structures. All of them were generic and the same as if they were pre-fabricated or some sort. _So, this is how Renaissance Italy looks like. _I wondered as I recalled my previous history lesson before graduating. As I looked around, I started to notice the iridescent from the water, the shiny white reflection from the sunlight was delightful to everybody's eyes, but not mine. I started to felt a sudden urge of nausea running in my stomach when I realized the fact that I was surrounded by a body of water, in fact I never fond of being in or near water, I always had that dark memory of near-drowning replaying in my brain again and again when I saw anything that involved getting into water.

I gripped the edge of the gondola until the oarsman turned his back and looked at me. He raised an eyebrow, "_Singore_, what's the matter?"

I tried to calm myself down and loosening my grip at on the edge of the gondola, I replied, "Nothing—"I tried my best not to look at the surrounding water, but I couldn't help it. Then, I noticed a dock at my left with people waiting for a gondola ride. I tugged the oarsman to make him stop at the dock. As soon the gondola had docked, I leaped out from the gondola and tried to escape the painful sight of the river before I was tugged back by the oarsman.

"_Pagare, singore._" He ordered.

I had nothing to give to the oarsman, the only thing I had was my golden wrist chain on my left wrist. I took it off and showed it to him, "Is this enough?"

He gazed at the golden wrist chain and accepted it. He thanked me and returned to the gondola to transport people to other parts of Florence. I returned my gaze and saw the city of Florence looming in front of my eyes. I started to get worry on how to return to 21st century. I left the dock and blended into the pedestrians in the foreign city in a foreign time.


	2. Chapter 1

1

I was walking down the streets of an Italian city of Florence. I had being to many places all over the world, but none would compare to the strangeness of my destination—Renaissance Italy. I totally blamed Alvin Chai of forcing me to be his guinea pig plus his mishandling of his so-called Time Displacement Machine he built. The street jammed packed with pedestrians, along with merchants. My face was still sore from the when I landed onto a gondola instead of a river. As the day passed, I started to feel the heat building inside me, I rolling up my sleeve, in an instant, heat that precipitated inside was released into the surroundings, sending a brief chill up from my arms.

As I walked pass a stall selling bread, an old man suddenly grabbed my rolled up sleeve and pulled me toward him. It caught me off guard and my heart raced from the sudden jerk. I couldn't forget the sight when I discovered the old man wore an old yellowish outfit with a heavy smell of alcohol. His hair was messed up and when he smiled, his teeth were crooked and yellowish. It was a nightmare turned into a reality right in front of me. I tried to distract myself by pretending I was browsing the breads that displayed on the cart.

"Hungry _visitatore_?" he showed me all variety of breads present on his stall and produced some hidden ones wrapped with a piece of white cloth. He opened the wrapped cloth, revealing almost rotting bread with thick black moles all over it. I felt I was going to puke right on the spot. I pushed the rotten bread aside and cleared my throat. "I am not hungry."

"Oh, that's good." The old man replied, wrapping the rotten bread and kept it in a compartment in the cart. Then, I grabbed his collar and whispered, "You got to help me! I being trapped in this dimension by my genius friend I can't go back to my original timeline! You got to help me!" 

The old man laughed as he produced a bottle of filled with yellowish liquid and two small glasses, "You must way too hungry until your head is messed up." He poured the liquid into the glasses and gave one to me, "Here, have a drink to soften up your head."

I observed the glass (of piss?) and brought it near my nose and had a good sniff of the stuff. _PU! I can't drink this! It smelled like something had died in the bottle! _My mind screamed from the sharp alcoholic smell, so I set it aside. "Uh _singore_?" I tried to make the old man pay attention of what he was doing, but it was very much failing.

When the old man finally noticed my presence, his originally yellowish white face had already showed sign of the effect from the alcoholic drink. He rubbed his eyes then he snapped, "What? Who is this? Why you are sitting here? Do you want to buy bread? If no, please walk away!"

"You are the one who grabbed my sleeve and forced me to drink this…this…glass of _piss_!"

He remained calm and finished his first round of his drink and refilled the glass. I knew I said something wrong, and started to get nervous as the old man sipped one glass after another. Behind me, the pedestrians were still walking behind me, busying with their daily lives. I turned to the old man: he was badly drunk from the number of glasses he drank. His pinkish face was turned bright red and his breath was filled with heavy alcoholic scent, "Young man—if—you don't—leave me—alone—I—I will—call the—HELP, SOMEONE! _LADRO_!"

He screamed first followed by mumbling gibberish nonsense to me then he threw the rest of the bottle at me. I dodged the flying bottle but the liquid inside had spilled on my blue hoodie. It definitely smelled like old beer or some sort. Then the old man started screaming again, "_LADRO_! _LADRO_! THIS _LADRO_ TRIED TO STEAL MY BREAD!"

I got my feet in an instant and tried to make a run for it, but in that very moment, my right leg got caught by the supporting legs of the cart and fell on to the ground face down, pulling the cart over as well. Pieces of bread flung from the cart to the streets, scaring pedestrians away and attracted beggars that haven't eaten for days. The old man was pissed and cried for the guards and charged at me, all in the same time.

I got up in an instant and just ran away from the scene as fast as possible. The old man who almost pounced me, landed on his chest and started to cry for the guards again. As I ran, I pushed anyone who was in the way and knocking off pottery and flowerbeds, but I didn't stop and apologize for the carnage, the only thing I cared right now was to lost the guards and blend into the crowd again. As I ran through the dense and complicated streets, I heard guards screaming behind me, promoted my run into a sprint. I saw everything around me turned into a big blur, the pedestrians were either shocked and dodged the incoming 'criminal' or tried to stop me down. I just pushed them aside and continued. To tell you the truth, I never expect I could sprint that fast before in my life, if this was in the present time, I would run faster than Usain Bolt or other world top sprinters.

I ran into a corner and discovered a dead end. _Shit! Why a dead end now? _I cursed and tried to leave the street, but the guards had already found me and blocked my exit. They were panting and were exhausted from chasing me, but from their eyes, I saw determination of capturing me and possibly kill me for what I had done. They drew their swords then inched toward me. I panicked. I ran toward the wall that made up the dead end and tried to find a surface that allowed me to climb away. As the guards drew even closer toward me, I failed to locate a gap for my hand to grip on. _Now's that a perfectly built wall! _

"You have nowhere to run you little troublemaker!" The leading guard said with a big grin in his face as he lifted his sword up to the sky, creating a bright glare. _This is the end of me…oh wait…is that a…_

An open window! Thank God! I bent my legs and sprinted toward the window before the sword come tumbling down and possibly ending my life. As I leaped into the open window, echoes from the sword hitting the cobblestone ringed in my ears. I landed onto a few sacks of flour on the ground, creating a huge puff of white cloud. Then, a woman suddenly screamed and dropped their tools onto the ground, then ran inside to call her husband. Knowing something went wrong, I ran out from the room that resembled a kitchen and into the living quarters of the building.

I scrambled to find a place for me to hide before the guards found out where I went to. I ran across a few rooms before found an empty cupboard at the hallway. I stepped into it and closed the door. I tried to remain calm but my loud breathing could blow my cover. My heart raced and my adrenaline was still pumping inside my veins from the high end chase. Outside, I could hear the guards barged in and started scrambling around the building. I could hear the woman trying to stop the guards from messing up their things. Their heavy footsteps and crinkling armour echoing all over me, then, everything turned into utter silence. I opened the door and ready to walk out.

Then, I saw the woman was standing right in front of me with a broom on her right hand. I could saw the flames of anger burning inside her eyes. Then she started bashing me with the broom. I dodged thanked to my parkour-trained-dexterity and jumped off the second floor window. I managed to land unharmed and escaped from the building that resembled a bread making factory, I could hear the woman was screaming behind me as I ran into the crowd in a nearby square.

_Bet the guards and that crazy bitch had a hard time looking for me in here._ I thought as I stood in a sea of people. They were watching some trick show that took place in the middle of the square. I watched the show for a little while after I muscled myself through the crowd. It was a music show or some sort, with musicians playing with some dated string instruments. I listened for a while and tried to muscle my way out from the barrier of humans. I then felt a tug at my hood, then being pulled into the centre stage. I had little time to react from the sudden commotion. I then felt a pad on my shoulder and the dated musical instrument popped right in front of my eyes.

"_Visitatore_? We are having this one-day performance to earn money for our trip to Venice, care to help us?" The man holding the instrument asked. He had a tall physique, with short blond hair. His eyes shined like a pair of blue gems. His outfit resembled something that originated from Venice or some other parts of Italy, but definitely the old rusty outfits from the others. I stared at him then turned my gaze at the instrument and hesitated. _This is not happening to me! I never make music with an instrument; I only know how to _make _noise with it! Think! Think! _

"But...but, I don't—" I mumbled.

He cut and turned my head toward the crowd, "Come on, we can't keep them waiting, _visitatore_."

I took the instrument off his hands, then proceed to find a site where I would start following the tune to the other musicians while the leader sang an Old Italian folk song. I tried my best to keep my fingers synchronized with the others, but my brain wasn't wired to play any musical instrument in the 21st century, let alone with this three-stringed instrument I was holding. As I played through the afternoon, the crowd started to cheer and clapped, then started throwing coins into the bowl at the corner. I noticed a bowl started to overfill with coins. I started to asked myself, _Am I that good or he is very good?_

When the performance ended, the crowd had dispersed and sun was setting. _Guess I am leaving right now. _I started to walk away from the square, until the lead singer called me.

"_Visitatore, _thank you for your help, we had enough money for our journey to Venice." He said, with a smile on his face.

"No problem, _singore._" I replied, mixing some Italian words I picked up throughout the day.

"As a repayment, I will let you take this."

He produced a small pouch containing almost three dozen coins from the previous performance. The pouch was heavy and produced a loud clinging sound when I shook it to estimate the content. _That must worth some hundred Ringgits in my time._ I thought. I kept the pouch in my pocket and gave the lead singer a friendly hug.

Then, I left.


	3. Chapter 2

2

As the day drew close to evening, I started to worry about accommodation. I wondered around in Florence for the past four hours without any luck of locating any buildings that resembled an inn or a hotel. The pouch that the lead singer gave me was getting heavier inside my pocket on my hoodie. I had already lowered my rolled up sleeve by now since I started to felt insecurity. Few more minutes had passed, the sun was setting at the horizon, painting the blue sky by a bright yellowish orange tone. The streets were starting to clear and merchants started to pack up their things before they settled for the day.

A whoosh sound caught my attention. I glanced up and saw a man with a white hood jumping from roof to roof like a professional traceur in my time. I couldn't believe my own eyes. I dashed toward an alley way, hoping to find a wall. When I reached the wall, I stopped. I felt a surge of nausea hitting my empty stomach when I saw the wall was filled with green moss and it was wet, it probably didn't get enough sunlight to properly dry the wall. _I hate wet, mossy walls_. I thought. I wanted to back away and ignore the hooded man but my curiosity still had an upper hand on me. Ignoring the wet and slipperiness of the wall, I ran up the wall and grabbed onto a gap all in a synchronized move. After secured myself on the wall, I lifted my body and started climbing up the brick wall. It wasn't an easy climb even I had being climbing things for quite some time. The wall was slippery and filled with green moss. I couldn't help myself of touching those slimy plants.

After a ten minute climb, I reached to the top of the wall, but the rooftops seemed to block my view. I clanged onto the roof tiles then lifted myself up to the rest of the roof top. I started looking for the hooded man I saw just now. Tried as I might, I couldn't locate him as if he disappeared into thin air. Then, I saw something at the distance: it looked like an eagle or a gargoyle resting on the edge of the building with pigeons surrounding it. He stayed there for a good while and as the sun set, the evening light casted onto him, his shadow made him more mysterious. I watched when the thing turned its head toward me. We were looked each other eye to eye before it stood up. The stirred pigeons started flying all over the place. Then I realize, it was the same hooded man I saw jumping from roof to roof.

Before I could do anything, he leaped.

I sat on the roof for a quite a good hour, after I saw the hooded man leaped down from the edge of the rooftop, I dashed toward the rooftop to investigate. As I ran, I heard cracking sounds as I kicked off loose rooftop tiles down to the streets below. When I reached the place where he leaped off, obviously the hooded man wasn't there, I looked down and noticed there was nothing that might slow down his fall and the shock from a three floor drop was something a human body wasn't design for. However, I still couldn't believe what I had just saw—a hooded man leaped over from the edge and disappeared into the streets below.

I looked up, and saw the sun was already set, but the sky was still fighting against the pending darkness that soon followed. Just now, it was orange yellow, now it had deepened to dark red. Down below, the streets were basically cleared and only stray animals wondering around in the city.

_It's time for me to get down from here. _I said. I retraced my tracks on getting the rooftop and soon, I was back on the ground again. I sprinted like a freed dog. I didn't know how many kilometers I had covered but it sure was fun sprinting in an empty road. Then, I something crossed my eyes promoting me to stop. It was an inn or a restaurant sort. I walked into the building and saw a lot of people were dancing, dining and drinking wine, all in mesh of people. I muscled my away through the crowd of people and found the owner of the inn.

He was a man in his fifties, with a short face with thick bushy beard. He had a pouch just like mine and a set of keys hanging on his belt. He was holding a bottle of wine and before I knew it, he was drinking the wine _directly_ from the bottle. I started to get a bit of disgusted as I had a nasty experience of a drunken old man accusing me of being a bread thief earlier today. I approached the man in a slow pace before he noticed me. He finished his last drop of the bottle of wine and set it aside. He wiped his mouth after he let out a loud burp. I held my nose when he did that.

"What do you want?" He asked.

"I want to stay here for the night and do you have anything to fill my empty stomach?" I replied, my right hand was already inside the pocket where I kept the pouch of money.

"Food, we got. Accommodation we got. I don't call it a_ locanda_ if we don't offer accommodation and services."

I smiled.

_Now that sucks! _I cursed as I accepted the fact there was no electric lights during the Renaissance. I followed the owner of the inn, who introduced himself as Flo De Vance to my room located in the second floor of the inn. I felt a calming silence in my ears, since I had dinner downstairs amidst the loud clinging sound of glass jars, high pitched singing and all other noises mixed into a noisy package. We walked to the end of the corridor to a door, he gave me a set of keys to it before he after he opened the door. I scanned the room before I walked in.

"Make yourself at home." Flo commented before he closed the door behind me.

I gave him a weak smile before focusing on the room. It was not much to offer, only a bed, closet and a corner table—unlike the modern inn in the 21st century. There was no wide screen plasma television, a bathroom that made out of over an hundred carat of gold, no fridge-that-full-with-beer and worst still, the only source of illumination was a puny candle. I sighed and sat on the bed at the corner of the room, next to a set of windows. Then I felt something odd regarding the bed—it as a king sized rather than single sized.

_If I am the only one that's in the room, then whose bed is this? _I pondered as I looked around the poorly illuminated room. I noticed the closet at next to the bed, I got my hands on the handle of the closet and tried to open it, but it didn't budge. I pulled it harder, but it was closed shut as if someone applied glue onto the hinges of the door. I let go of the closet handle and lay on the bed. _It's almost a day now, are my parents worry about me? What about my friends? I must find a way to return to the 21__st__ century, before I expire. _I thought.

_Thud!_

That sound caught my ear's attention. I looked around to check the source of the sound but there was nothing around me. I get off the bed to check the windows. I slammed it open and looked down to the empty dark streets below, checking whether the sound was the stray dogs knocking over things, but I had no luck of finding the source of the sound. I turned and saw the door was somewhat opened. _Now this is getting stranger by the second. I closed this door minutes ago, there's nobody other than me owned this room. _I thought as I went to close the door.

After I closed the door, I felt a chill down at my spine all of the sudden. I wanted to turn around and look what's going on but as I do it, there was an arm bigger than my calf wrapped around my neck like a scarf. I started choking by the awesome strength of the arm as it started to press against my throat. I struggled to break free from the grip, but that arm had pinned me.

"No use of struggling _trasgressore. _That blade on your back will kill you instantly if you continue." A deep voice behind me commanded.

_A knife! Right behind my back! Now that just great!_ I panicked. I could already felt the coldness of the blade constantly running up from my spine; it was like the air of death was accumulated at that singular point. My heart raced and my ability sentence started to broke down, "I—I—owned this place."

The voice behind me laughed evil and my heart had gone overdrive. I wished I could die by a peaceful heart attack then being backstabbed by a madman. By the time he stopped laughing, the man's tone returned to the old sick, serious tone, "_No, signore, _I _owned_ this place. Flo is an absent minded man. He must forget that this room is reserved to me-"

"You are an egomaniac."I snapped. The voice stopped, then I felt a sharp pain behind my back as the tip of the blade pierced my hoodie to my skin and into my muscle. I felt blood was trickling out from my wound. Just as I thought my life would end this way, he stopped then held me tighter, "It is a bad, BAD idea to trespass Ezio's room."

I couldn't take any more of his useless egomaniac speech. I bite his arm and kicked his stomach. The man staggered and set me free. Seizing the opportunity, I broke free from his grip and dashed toward the windows I opened previously. Behind me, the man followed me. I saw the blade retracted itself into his wrist, it made me panic even more. When I reached the open window, I bent my legs and dived toward the window just like what I did when escaping from the man with the butcher knife.

_Freedom! _My heart yelled before I was pulled back by the man, then he pinned me on the wall. What I saw after that shocked me—it was the same hooded man I saw jumping from roof to roof. His tunic was white with a lot of gears strapped all over his body. His grip was powerful, way powerful than I expected. He raised his clenched fist then said, "You leave me no choice, _trasgressore._ _Buonanotte."_

The fist shot right into my face.


End file.
